Trailblazing Strategy to Inflight Development!
The inflight expertise has lengthy been stagnant, with restricted choices for passengers past fundamental facilities. Nevertheless, a wave of innovation is remodeling the skies, and one firm on the forefront of this alteration is Airfree. Based in 2016, Airfree has developed a cutting-edge e-commerce platform that’s revolutionizing the best way we store and work together with content material onboard.
Airfree’s progressive platform replaces outdated paper catalogs and trolleys with a handy and user-friendly digital answer. Passengers can now browse an enormous on-line catalog of services and products, from duty-free objects to meals and drinks, all from their seat screens or private units. This seamless expertise permits passengers to make knowledgeable purchases and obtain their orders at their comfort, both throughout their flight or upon arrival at their vacation spot, or straight at residence.
Main this cost in the direction of a extra customized and enriching inflight expertise are two visionary Co-founders: Etienne de Verdelhan and Agnès Debains. With their mixed experience in expertise, e-commerce, and retail, they’ve formed Airfree right into a power for optimistic change throughout the aviation trade, making an incredible affect on our experiences.
Let’s delve in to study extra about their transformative strategy:
Revolutionizing Inflight Experiences
In 2016, Etienne and Agnès co-founded Airfree, embarking on an thrilling journey to reshape the inflight buying expertise.
Etienne, the tech aficionado, brings a wealth of experience in tech programs and e-commerce platform growth. His ardour for progressive applied sciences drives Airfree’s options ahead.
Agnès, the VP of Product & Advertising and marketing, serves because the driving power behind Airfree’s product growth. Her experience in e-commerce, retail, and journey retail venture administration ensures that Airfree’s choices are each cutting-edge and aligned with the evolving wants of passengers and airways.
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Collectively, Etienne and Agnès type a dynamic duo united by a typical objective: to revolutionize the inflight retail & content material show expertise and supply passengers and airways with the very best options the trade has to supply.
Revolutionizing Inflight Retail
Shifting past paper catalogs and trolleys, Airfree introduces a revolutionary e-commerce platform that transforms the inflight buying expertise. Passengers now have entry to an enormous on-line catalog, conveniently looking and putting orders from their seat screens or smartphones throughout their flight. Airfree additional enhances the expertise with versatile supply choices, permitting passengers to decide on supply on the airport, their residence, and even on a connecting or return flight.
Airfree’s intention is to seamlessly combine onboard retail of duty-free merchandise, providers, meals, and even digital content material into the flight expertise. This SaaS-based answer empowers linked airways to supply a various vary of merchandise, customized suggestions, and safe fee choices. Superior options embrace offline search capabilities, customized catalogs primarily based on route info, loyalty level integration, and rather more.
Airfree’s semi-embedded platform, particularly designed for inflight use, optimizes bandwidth utilization and reduces satellite tv for pc connection prices. This ensures dependable and quick looking of up to date content material for passengers, setting Airfree other than opponents who solely make the most of embedded offline content material or ground-based platforms reliant on fixed connectivity.
Hovering Above Retail to Revolutionize the Inflight Expertise
Following years of devoted analysis and growth, Airfree achieved a big milestone with the launch of its answer on one of many world’s most prestigious airways, Singapore Airways. In 2021, Airfree built-in its e-shopping answer with the KrisWorld in-flight leisure system, enabling passengers to browse and buy from the KrisShop e-commerce platform. This integration affords passengers entry to an intensive choice of over 4,000 merchandise, starting from unique airline merchandise to magnificence merchandise, fragrances, electronics, and liquor, all at duty-free costs. Passengers can conveniently select supply on their subsequent Singapore Airways flight or on to their properties.
Constructing on this success, Airfree has secured a partnership with Emirates, equipping their new plane with its e-shopping answer. This collaboration will permit Emirates to supply their Emirates Pink merchandise for digital buying onboard.
Airfree’s achievements prolong past these partnerships, as they actively have interaction with main airways throughout Asia, Europe, and the Center East by way of a sturdy industrial pipeline. This continued enlargement demonstrates Airfree’s dedication to revolutionizing the inflight buying expertise for each passengers and airways.
Whereas initially targeted on revolutionizing inflight retail for duty-free merchandise and meals & beverage, Airfree has expanded its portfolio prior to now 12 months to supply a complete suite of providers designed to reinforce the passenger expertise.
In July 2023, Airfree launched its E-menu answer on Singapore Airways. This progressive platform permits passengers to discover a curated choice of meals tailor-made to particular cabin lessons and flight routes. The menu is up to date prior to every flight to make sure accuracy and accommodate any last-minute modifications. Airfree has developed an answer for inflight service gross sales. Passengers can now effortlessly improve their seats, entry unique facilities, or bask in premium meals, all from the consolation of their seats.
Leveraging their superior expertise, Airfree allows airways to show dynamic content material offline on numerous units, together with seatback screens and private units. This opens up a world of potentialities, permitting airways to showcase real-time newsfeeds, e-magazines, movies, customized AI-powered affords, vacation spot highlights, and extra!
By these various choices, Airfree demonstrates its dedication to offering a complete and enriching inflight expertise for each passengers and airways.
Minimizing Bandwidth, Maximizing Expertise
Amongst Airfree’s most notable improvements is the event of its patent-pending semi-embedded expertise. This groundbreaking strategy allows content material updates on the airplane’s servers earlier than every flight, leveraging floor connectivity for effectivity.
Airfree’s system cleverly synchronizes content material with an onboard server container, guaranteeing seamless looking for passengers throughout flight time with out counting on satellite tv for pc bandwidth. Actual-time satellite tv for pc connection is solely used for the checkout section, together with processing costs, promotions, inventory availability, funds, and orders.
This progressive strategy permits Airfree to considerably scale back satellite tv for pc connection prices for airways and optimize bandwidth utilization. In reality, Airfree’s bandwidth consumption is demonstrably decrease, roughly 200 occasions lower than a typical ground-based web site.
By minimizing bandwidth utilization, Airfree delivers a quick, easy, and extremely environment friendly expertise for passengers all through their journey, setting them other than conventional inflight content material options.
A Catalyst for Ancillary Income and Passenger Expertise
Agnes highlights two key traits influencing the aviation trade in Europe and globally: the rising significance of ancillary income and the evolving deal with passenger expertise.
Ancillary income, representing round 15% of worldwide airline revenues in 2022, performs a important position in airline profitability. Nevertheless, onboard retail, a big phase throughout the class, remained underutilized attributable to technological limitations. Airfree’s progressive answer addresses this problem, enabling airways to unlock new onboard income streams by providing a various vary of services and products throughout flights.
The second development, enhancing passenger expertise, goes past merely transporting passengers. Airways now aspire to offer a holistic journey expertise by way of customized providers, expanded in-flight leisure choices, improved connectivity, and upgraded cabin interiors. This shift displays the rising recognition of the passenger expertise as a key differentiator in a aggressive market.
Inexperienced Skies for Sustainable Inflight Buying
Agnes emphasizes the rising concern for environmental consciousness within the aviation trade and highlights Airfree’s digital answer as a key driver of sustainability in inflight retail.
Airfree addresses the environmental challenges related to conventional inflight duty-free providers by eliminating the necessity to transport unsold merchandise and paper catalogs on each flight. This progressive strategy reduces the carbon footprint related to transportation, minimizes waste generated, and aligns with airways’ efforts in the direction of a extra environmentally accountable future.
By adopting Airfree’s digital platform, airways can display their dedication to environmental sustainability, scale back their operational carbon footprint, and contribute to a extra eco-conscious aviation trade.
Leveraging Partnerships for Trade Management
Etienne underscores the numerous position of Airfree’s collaborations and partnerships in driving the corporate’s success. Notably, partnerships with main Inflight Leisure and Connectivity (IFEC) suppliers have yielded a number of key advantages.
Firstly, these partnerships guarantee seamless integration and compatibility of Airfree’s answer throughout the broader IFEC ecosystem. This compatibility is essential for airways to confidently undertake new expertise with out disrupting their operations. By working with established IFEC suppliers, Airfree simplifies integration and affords airways reassurance by way of well-tested options.
Secondly, by being included by default within the programs of main IFEC suppliers, Airfree positive factors vital trade visibility and positions itself as a available and endorsed answer. This recognition additional cements Airfree’s place as a number one innovator in inflight providers.
Airfree’s strategic collaborations haven’t solely facilitated its personal development but in addition supplied airways with a trusted and well-integrated answer for his or her inflight operations.
Demystifying the Complexities of Digital Onboard Gross sales
Whereas digital onboard gross sales might seem simple, Etienne emphasizes its inherent complexity attributable to a number of elements:
Restricted bandwidth: Inflight bandwidth stays restricted and costly, making the direct adoption of ground-based e-commerce platforms impractical. Airfree’s semi-embedded answer addresses this problem by pre-caching content material on onboard servers earlier than every flight, minimizing reliance on dwell satellite tv for pc connections.
Accessibility throughout platforms: The necessity for onboard gross sales accessibility on seatback screens, not simply private units, necessitates partnerships with Inflight Leisure & Connectivity (IFEC) suppliers. Airfree prioritizes these partnerships to make sure compatibility with various IFEC programs employed by airways.
Compatibility with a number of IFEC programs: Airways usually use totally different IFEC programs throughout their fleet attributable to various plane fashions and generations. Airfree’s answer should be appropriate with all present IFEC programs to supply seamless integration for airways.
Restricted capabilities of onboard servers: Lengthy life cycles and stringent certification processes end in restricted CPU and reminiscence capabilities on onboard servers. Airfree’s system is extremely optimized to carry out inside these limitations, guaranteeing a easy consumer expertise.
Content material updates: Current IFEC options depend on guide month-to-month updates for static content material like motion pictures and video games, proscribing flexibility and dynamism. Airfree’s distinctive “prefetch” course of permits for dynamic content material updates earlier than or throughout the flight, guaranteeing passengers have entry to contemporary and related info.
Safety concerns: Safe entry to plane programs and the event of resilient onboard parts are essential attributable to safety concerns. Airfree prioritizes these elements in its growth efforts, guaranteeing a safe and dependable platform for airways and passengers.
Etienne concludes by highlighting Airfree’s distinctive place as the only impartial, white-label SaaS answer addressing all ache factors for airways, making it a number one power within the digital onboard gross sales panorama.
Hovering In direction of Innovation and Progress Partnerships
Etienne outlines Airfree’s formidable plans for the long run. As the corporate seems to be in the direction of 2024, it stays dedicated to steady innovation and exploring new alternatives to complement the passenger expertise additional. To gas this development, Airfree actively seeks partnerships with formidable entities that share their imaginative and prescient for setting new requirements throughout the aviation trade.
Knowledgeable Recommendation
Agnes: My recommendation is to remain agile, embrace expertise, and be open to collaboration. Concentrate on delivering distinctive experiences to passengers and be ready to adapt to altering trade traits and buyer expectations.
Etienne: I’d encourage aspiring professionals to be progressive, persistent, and open to studying. Constructing a profitable start-up within the aero discipline requires a ardour for the trade and the willingness to work arduous to realize your objectives… in addition to some persistence!
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